Lincoln Park Single Family Home with Lush Garden Reduces $50K: 1354 W. Webster
We had a heated chatter about this 4-bedroom single family home at 1354 W. Webster in Lincoln Park last June 2009 that evolved into a debate about the riskiness (or lack thereof) of ARMs.
See our prior chatter here.
The vintage house is still on the market and was just reduced $50,000.
This house appears to have it “all”- including central air, a garage, 3 of the bedrooms are located on the second floor, and a lush garden in the backyard that has been featured on the Sheffield Garden Walk.
Carol Duran at Prudential Rubloff has the listing. See the pictures and a virtual tour here.
See the property website here.
1354 W. Webster: 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, no square footage listed, 2 car garage
- Sold in August 1996 for $355,000
- Sold in June 1998 for $385,000
- Sold in May 2000 for $592,000
- Public records indicate it sold in 2003 but I can’t find a price
- Listed in April 2009 for $849,900
- Was still listed in June 2009 at $849,900
- Reduced
- Currently listed at $799,000
- Taxes of $9769
- Central Air
- Living room: 17×11
- Dining room: 11×10
- Office: 11×7
- Kitchen: 19×11
- Bedroom #1: 15×13
- Bedroom #2: 11×10
- Bedroom #3: 15×13
- Bedroom #4: 11×11
this was said by runner runner last post
“Calling this a four bedroom is stretching it. Two of them have ceilings sloping down to about 4 feet high. So even though it says 11×11 you can only stand up in an area about 5×11”
i think the place is nice, 800k nice? and RIGHT a high traffic street, you would need to keep the front blinds closed all the time!
i would rather get that 3/2 fake historic condo on 1920 N. Seminary.
now to wait for anon to call me out on this one……..waiting…….
I don’t think Webster is all that high traffic in this area just west of Racine. I actually like this place – I forget what the cons were that were mentioned the last go-round – something about garbage trucks… The yard is nice and if the basement could be made at all nice, I think this is a pretty good place.
It is kind of right on Webster (i.e., no front yard), but that explains why the back actually has some space. Personally, I’d rather combine that space that have 2 unusable narrow spaces.
HD, on the last post for this property you wrote:”First of all I’d like to point out that of the 11 mortgages recorded on this property since 1998, no less than 10 of the 11 have been ARMS. Are ARMS a sign of financial sophistication for Lincoln Park residents? Or have they become a necessity to squeeze more house out of the borrowers monthly payment?
Well, the current owner has $612,000 7/1 ARM, fixed for the first 7 years at 5.125% then adjustable every year thereafter based upon the 1 year LIBOR plus 2.5%. First reset is in November 2010;”
-how are you getting this info; I know about the ccrd and I can see the selling price on the dead and the amounts of the mortgages but not the type of loan, etc.
If they want to move it, they probably need to come down to $700K.
“they probably need to come down to $700K”
why do you say that?
800k for SFH in “west LP” is a good price i really dont think you can get a 4br SFH in for lower than 900k?
Tom, I pass the county building everyday. I spent 10 minutes in the basement of recorder’s office and physically looked at the scanned images recorded on their computer system. It costs nothing to look. The promissory note is usually recorded along with the mortgage and it very clearly lays out the terms.
ARMs (which are usually Interest Only) are a way to squeeze a higher purchase price out of a lower monthly payment. They clearly drive up the cost of housing to the point where everyone in the ‘hood is required to use them just to qualify.
For god’s sake the previous thread goes through this in painful detail… ARMs are not usually interest-only, they are usually as amortizing as a 30yr. Use them when you’re buying in a period when rates are high. I am a Bitter Renter but I know that ARMs aren’t crazy instruments.
Alright, not to start this all up again…
But why do you think that ARMs are usually I/O? There is no reason to think that and for a long time the only jumbos that were around were ARMs. I/O is bad, ARMs aren’t.
There is nothing wrong with using a 7 or 10 year ARM when buying a house. Nothing at all. Use it is a risk and a hedge against other investments, but there is nothing at all wrong with that.
There isn’t anything fundamentally wrong or scary about ARMs. If you are planning on moving from your house within 7 years getting a 7 or 10 year ARM isn’t stupid, it is actually smart and will save you very real money.
Unfortunately due to our government policy of ZIRP its unlikely this speculator will have a true come to Jesus meeting in November 2010 with higher rates. If anything their ARM reset will be lower and once again interest rate speculators (those utilizing ARMs) will be rewarded ex-post for their actions.
They way our government is handling this housing crisis its making the speculators out to look like geniuses and the prudent people who stuck with fixed rate amortizing loans to look like schmucks.
Look at the prom notes. I’ve seen hundreds. ARMs are usually IO. However, I may not have seen your particular fully amortizing non-IO ARM. You are special. Here, have a chocolate chip cookie. ARMs are not IO by definition BUT mortgage brokers commonly offered mortgages that combined the two. Its about squeezing as much house out of the smallest possible payment. Why wouldn’t you go IO??
(Caveat 2nd mortgages are often ARM but fully amortizing, howevee they are not like the usually IO ARM 1st mortgage).
A lot of misinformation about ARMs out there. ARMs have a bad rap because SUBPRIME 2/28s had 6% plus margins on them. Most arms are not interest only. Interest only is a feature that was on both arms and fixed rate loans.
Most conventional ARMs have a 2.25% margin and some even as low as 1.5%. The vast majority of ARMs are tied to the one year LIBOR. LIBOR is about 1.47% right now, so a conventional arm that is currently adjusting would yield a rate for the next year of less than 4% in most cases.
Conventional ARMS also have caps on them so they can’t adjust wildly. Most conventional ARMS can never be more than 5% or 6% above the start rate and can’t adjust more than 2% up or down in any given year. So if you have a 4% ARM, the most it can go to 9%… EVER even if we get Jimmy Carter inflation. It can only move up in 2% increments each year to get to that 9%.
A 30 year fixed is the most expensive mortgage you can get. However, when rates are historically low as they are now, you get the 30 year unless you are dead sure you are going to be out of the property or you can handle potentially higher payments in the future.
just quickly chiming in that I don’t think 13xx west is really “West Lincoln Park” – I’d refer that charming distinction for west of Ashland.
the vast majority of second mortgages were HELOCs which are interest only – they don’t offer anything else. Sometimes you can get a fixed rate fully amortizing closed end seconds which are usually 30 year amortizations but 15 year balloons. (Payment based on 30 year but you have a balloon payment in year 15). However, the fixed rate products are dramatically more expensive than the HELOCs right now since prime rate is so low which is what drives HELOC rates.
HD, I was only looking for how someone finds the specifics on how to look that info up. I’m more than aware of ARMs. IO, options and all the other financing vehicles. No need for us to all rehash our opinions on the merits or downfall of ARM lending.
Thanks for the info; I didn’t know that much detail was kept in the recorder’s scan. I thought it was just the amounts and grantor/ee names.
We toured the house a few weeks ago and generally thought it was ok. The sloping ceiling in two of the bedrooms makes the space less usable. The proximity to the city building next door isn’t great, but the garage doors for the city trucks is around the corner on Southport, so they are about as far away as possible while still being next door. I may be wrong, but I thought I saw a realtor sign in front of the city building the other day – did anyone else see that, or am I confusing blocks.
I agree that this part of Webster going westbound can get very busy at rush hour and on weekends. The light at Clybourn and Webster combined with the 4 way stop at Webster and Southport create some jams that can require waiting through 1 or 2 cycles of the Clybourn/Webster light. Not a deal breaker, but there would almost always be moderate traffic out your front door.
Interestingly, the current owner doesn’t permit the realtor to put an open house sign out front. Apparently, he thinks it will generate too many people just popping in to have a look. That says something about foot traffic level at the location.
Bonus at this location, its right by my favorite pizza joint, Pequods!
“i would rather get that 3/2 fake historic condo on 1920 N. Seminary.”
I’d rather rent than buy the apartment.
The big question I have on this one is, is the basement anything close to full height (8′, imo)? If it is, I can see this place working; but I doubt that there’s that much headroom and digging out a basement is such a pita.
And, of course, there’s the school issue.
PS: I’m staying out of the ARM discussion this time; anyone care what I think (not that I expect anyone does), see the prior thread.
Tom: The alternative way to view those same recorded documents is to go onto ccrd.com and pay it a few dollars to download them so you can skim through the many pages to find what homedelete is finding
marko help me out here,
looking at the pictures it looks like a 6 1/2 ft basement and can bet the pipe and duct work bring some areas to under 6 feet. (this is all an assumption absed on pictures)
and marko helped point out the foot traffic window issue i had. still this is 800k for 4br!
“looking at the pictures it looks like a 6 1/2 ft basement ”
You basing that on the outside shots? Or did you find more pix?
outside front and back plus street view, tried to estimate the height of the front window with the picture of the front window from the living room. then taking legal requierments that i remember that you have to call a crall space a crawl space and stuff.
marko help a brother out 🙂
“you have to call a crall space a crawl space and stuff.”
Plus, the shot of teh house from the backyard shows a basement door on the left, down some steps.
“Plus, the shot of teh house from the backyard shows a basement door on the left, down some steps.”
i cant see in the picture if the door is 100% below grade or has at least a foot above it.
my simple minded logic and what i have seen in life, is when the door is below grade you are looking at a basment where the above floor joists are 7 feet from the lowest pitch in the basment. add a celling get ya down 3/4 an in with dry wall and lights.
Most people I know who have ARMs are fully amortizing on a 30 year basis. When they reset at year N, the payment adjusts to continue the amort down on a 30 – N year basis.
Russ, my private student loans was an ARM, and last year (or maybe it was 07) rates started to rise .25 a month every month for 17 months straight. My payment nearly doubled. Thank god I make enough that it wasn’t a problem but for an hourly worker during slow season that could potentially be a problem (and has been for many debtor). Then the great crash of ’08 happened and the LIBOR shot through the roof for about a month. Luckily, the fed managed to lower rates within about 30 or 45 days, and rates got low again before my Jan 1 reset.
That’s the bad rap that ARMs have. You think, OH I’ll just refi or sell after the fixed term of 5/7/10 years expires and I’ll be OK. But then 5/7/10 years comes and you can’t refi, or you’re underwater, or you can’t sell, i.e. witness where we are now.
Sorry guys, I sound like a broken record, but here we go: people get these ARMS with artificially low fixed rates (as compared to 30 year fixed rates) to squeeze more house out of their monthly payment. This happens so much and so often that it just becomes an accepted way of financing in the higher end. Hence, every owner in this house in the last 11 years used an ARM.
caveat Fed doesn’t control LIBOR but fed fund rate, but they are correlated.
This is NEXT DOOR to the GARBAGE dump!! Who would pay anywhere near $800K for it??? I predict $575K.
walls are to close to the next door houses…so how do you fix wall if you have to do it?
Tom: Here’s how to check the info at the county building. You could go at lunch.
Enter the county building on the 118 N Clark street entrance. Take an immediate left (right before the shoe shine station where you will often see Jesse White getting his shoes shined) into the recorders office. Walk past the cashiers and take the staircase on the left into the basement. Enter the dungeonesque room in front of you and to the left. Walk to a computer. Type the PIN into the computer. (being prepared with PINs from the assessor’s website saves time). The screen after entering the PIN looks similar to that on ccrd.info. double click on the document you want to view and scroll through it. In the case of mortgages, often the mortgage document itself is the first document recorded as a mortgage, but the promissory note, along with any riders is attached to the back. So in a 26 page document, the first 15 or so are the mortgage and the last 11 are the prom note/riders. The prom note usually has some boxes checked for riders, like multi-unit, ARM, IO, and a couple others. Often, but not always, the prom note or the rider lays out the terms of the loan. More often the 1st mortgage contains the terms but less the second mortgage contains it less often. sometimes the second is just a general document that has the amount of the second only with no terms other than ARM or IO, if even that. In the case of an untapped line of credit it just spells out the maximum amount on the line of credit. If you need any further help there are usually a handful of yokels with cronyism/nepotism jobs there willing to help; there are often a bunch of private citizens working for various companies (title co’s, tax sale buyers, real estate speculators, etc) data mining and reviewing documents. It takes a while to get a hang of it, but I’ve seen these documents so so many times I can look at something and know within 10 second what I’m looking for. I hope this spells out exactly anyone here needs to do to look up mortgages at the recorders office. Knowledge is power.
Of course don’t forget the infamous dive EPI….
HD — isnt this the same that is online but you dont have to pay for it in the “dungeon” ??
JMM, yes, its free to view at the recorder’s office but costs money to download online. To me its not worth paying 50c a page or whatever to download some random mortgage recorded on a cribchatter prop, but if I pass the recorder’s building everyday on my way back from court, spending 5 or 10 minutes is worth it. Then again, I’ve only done that once and that was to research the use of ARMs on this particular LP property. And to look at the mortgage docs of my friend who bought a 7 figure home in LP because I was shocked this person could afford the payment. Well, 7 figs is easier to afford when you get a 6 figure down payment from family and leverage it 3x with an IO super-jumbo ARM with 10 year balloon (all too common). So that’s how ‘rich’ people do it…even then the payment is like 6k a month with taxes.
“NEXT DOOR to the GARBAGE dump!!”
It’s not a dump, or even a transfer station. It’s a garage. Not that that is *good*, but it’s a whole lot different from a *dump*.
I didn’t measure the ceiling heights, but I can assure you that they are not 8 ft. Probably somewhere between 6.5 and 7. I saw a few properties that day, so things are blurring a bit, but if I recall correctly, the space was used primarily for storage with some marginally usable living space. My wife and I gauge a basement on whether we can put a treadmill in it and this one was a resounding no.
thaks marko for clearing that up.
even at 7 feet and if your wife is average 5’5 the tredmill would be a dangerous thing.
but you dont have to put a treadmill in the basement
“but you dont have to put a treadmill in the basement”
You keep yours in the kitchen, don’t you? Klassy!
“You keep yours in the kitchen, don’t you? Klassy!”
not there it clashes with the 70’s lime green refrigerator. its in the living room in front of the tv with wet clothes hanging on it to dry.
isnt that the normal place for it?
Critiquing Homedelete’s helpful travelogue: a) the old guy shining shoes does imho the best job in Chicagoland b) dungeonesque doesn’t do a sufficient job of conveying what a miserable place the title doc room is & so are many of the workers (but regulars are helpful) c) it takes years of reviewing docs to do it as smoothly as Homedelete describes it being done and d) it is very common that the recorded docs are only the mortgage not the note and that amount stated in the mortgage is sometimes (often in case of LaSalle Bk now Bk of America) 2 times the actual loan (apparently to protect the possibility the borrower might default and the amount owed might be much higher than original principal due to accrued interest, real estate taxes if pd by lender, penalties et al.
118 N. LaSalle is not the only location to use the recorder’s computer system for free. Five other locations also have these capabilities.